1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a picture processing apparatus for processing infrared pictures obtained with an infrared ray sensor to detect pieces of information pertaining to a person and/or an environment. Also, the present invention relates to an applied apparatus utilizing the picture processing apparatus in various industrial fields pertaining to an air conditioning system, a monitoring system, a housing facility, a welfare apparatus, an intelligent building system, a traffic flow control apparatus, a nursing apparatus, a personal identification performing apparatus and the like.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A first technical field solved according to the present invention relates to a picture processing apparatus for processing infrared pictures obtained with an infrared ray sensor to detect pieces of information pertaining to a person and/or an environment. An air conditioning system for detecting pieces of information pertaining to personal positions with an infrared ray sensor has been utilized to control an air conditioner. For example, the air conditioning system has been proposed in Published Unexamined Patent Application No. 143047 of 1992 (H2-143047). In detail, a room is partitioned into a plurality of blocks, and an infrared ray sensor is installed in each of tile blocks to detect an infrared ray. Thereafter, whether or not a person stays in each of tile blocks is judged by detecting an output variation in each of the infrared ray sensors, and a wind direction and a room temperature are adjusted according to the judgement by controlling an air conditioner provided in the room. In this case, the judgement is performed by regarding the person as a moving heat-generating substance.
Also, a monitoring system is well-known as a system utilizing an infrared ray camera in which an infrared ray reflecting on a person is detected. Also, another monitoring system for processing visible pictures to detect pieces of information pertaining to a person is well-known. In this case, a monitoring camera for detecting visible light is installed in a detected area, and a person is monitorred or recorded in a video recorder.
3. Problems to be solved by the Invention
However, the detection of a person according to the output variation in each of the infrared ray sensors installed in the partitioned blocks of the room utilizes that the person is regarded as a moving heat-generating substance. Therefore, in cases where a person is at a standstill because the person has a sleep, the detection of the person is difficult because a difference between a reference temperature set in each of the blocks and a measured block temperature becomes small. Also, it is hard to distinguish a person at a standstill from other heat-generating substances. In addition, because a moving heat-generating substance is merely detected in each of the blocks, it is impossible to specify the number of persons existing in each of the blocks even though the moving heat-generating substance is recognized as a person or persons. Accordingly, it is hard to detect states of persons pertaining to control characters of an air conditioning such as the number of persons, a volume of person's clothes, active degrees of persons, postures of persons and the like.
Also, because a sensor is adjusted in advance to measure an assumed fixed scene, a scene to be actually measured by the sensor differs from the assumed fixed scene in cases where the sensor is, for example, installed in the neighborhood of a wall. In this case, the wall is, for example, erroneously recognized as a floor. Therefore, when a wall temperature is suddenly increased because of a warm wind generated in an air conditioner, the warm wall is erroneously regarded as a person.
Next, a detecting method for detecting a person with an infrared ray sensor is well-known. However, not only a large number of detecting devices are required to obtain high resolution infrared pictures but also a cooling apparatus is generally required. Therefore, a complicated processing and a high cost is required to install a picture processing apparatus in which infrared pictures are processed at high resolution with an infrared ray sensor.
Also, a detecting method for detecting a person by processing visible pictures is well-known. However, the picture processing for detecting a person is difficult in cases where the intensity of illuminance is low or changed in point of time. Also, a detecting method for detecting a person by distinguishing a color of the person from other colors of environments is well-known. However, because colors of environments near to the color of a person exist in a room in which the person lives, it is difficult to adopt the color of the person as a distinguishing character.
Also, a detecting method for detecting a person by processing differential pictures is well-known. This detecting method is effective in cases where the person is moving. However, the detection of the person is difficult in cases where the person is at a standstill.
In conclusion, the problems in the prior art are as follows.
(1) The detection of a person is difficult.
(2) Personal information cannot be accurately detected.
The bottom of the first problem (1) is that a person cannot be separated from environments surrounding the person. In the prior art, the detection of a person is tried by utilizing characteristics of the person. In cases where detected objects other than a person are called environments, the states of the environments are usually multifarious, and a part of the states of the environments are near to the characteristics of the person. Therefore, the detection of the person becomes difficult. For example, in cases where a measured area in a picture processing apparatus in which visible pictures are processed is a general family room, the environments such as luminance and colors easily vary so that a person cannot be detected with a high accuracy. Also, in cases where picture signals are produced with an infrared ray sensor, distinguishing characteristics in the distinction between a person and environments are temperature and the variation of the temperature. In cases where heat-generating characteristics and/or warming characteristics of the environments are considered, even though a temperature of an environment near to a temperature of a person is detected, the judgement that the environment is not the person can be performed. Therefore, the detecting accuracy of the person can be enhanced.
The bottom of the second problem (2) is that it is difficult to relate pieces of sensed information obtained by processing pictures to desired information. A first reason of the difficulty is that the resolution and/or accuracy of the pictures and/or the sensed information are low, and a second reason of the difficulty results from an information processing. In detail, even though the pictures and/or the sensed information processed are obtained with high resolution and accuracy, in cases where the information processing for recognizing the pictures according to a pattern recognition and relating the sensed information to the desired information is inferior, an environment is erroneously detected as a person.